Wednesday, August 31, 2011

A hazardous materials alert was issued at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois today after several employees encountered a suspicious package in the mailroom of the base post office, and became ill. The affected people were sent to a hospital, a decontamination unit was set up, and extensive tests were conducted. As far as the experts could determine, no harmful substances were present in the environment. The cause of the illness is unknown.

Meanwhile, entry to an amusement park in Rye, New York was blocked off after a brawl arose when Muslim visitors objected to the park’s “no headgear” policy, which had denied women in hijab access to certain rides. Large numbers of police were summoned to quell the disturbance.

In other news, the Italian oil giant ENI says its natural gas pipeline from Libya to Italy will reopen in mid-October. Elsewhere in Libya, large numbers of Tuareg tribesmen fled across the border to Algeria after being targeted by the rebels. They were suspected of having sympathies with the Gaddafi regime, or even of being mercenaries.

Thanks to American Delight, C. Cantoni, Diana West, Egghead, heroyalwhyness, Insubria, JP, Kitman, Nilk, Rembrandt, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

Below is the first in a series of posts by our Russian correspondent Russkiy about his experiences with Muslims and Arabs. He says, “The first installment provides an introduction about the evolution of my personal views towards Islam.”

The Islamic Mentality
by Russkiy

As I was growing up in the Soviet Union during the eighties I was programmed (maybe not intentionally) by the state to dislike Islam by the continuous stream of movies and documentaries about the war in Afghanistan. Before many Westerners became familiar with Islam, I, as a little child, knew that Muslims had many wives, worshiped Muhammad and were very fanatical and aggressive.

It wasn’t long after the collapse of the Soviet Union that wars in Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, and closer to home in Chechnya flared up. That was additional proof to me as a child that Islam was evil. The news stories from Israel and Palestinian territories reinforced my view of the Islamic fanaticism.

At the same time, I was taught in school, by the media, and within the family that racism is wrong. Somehow these two ideas coexisted in my mind. On one hand Islam was something bad, and by default anyone south of the border (that included Armenians and Georgians) were Islamic and therefore bad, and on the other hand a strong dislike for racism.

In the mid 1990s my family and I moved to a Western country where I came into contact with many Muslims and Arabs. When I started my university studies I befriended a number of Iraqi, Palestinian, and Egyptian students with whom I shared classes. It was nice to be within a group, as previously I had attended a country school, where I felt myself isolated, as a new immigrant, from the rest of the students.

Due to my contact with the Muslim students I became more interested in Islamic culture and felt guilty for the internal feelings of dislike I had for everything Muslim. I was surprised just how political-minded and knowledgeable those Arabs seemed to be. I later realized that those ideas they seemed to possess at that time were simply propaganda their parents were feeding them throughout their entire lives.

Under their influence I became aware of American “evils”. At that time I wasn’t thinking of converting to Islam, but my dislike for America, which existed from my Soviet upbringing, was reinforced by various arguments that were presented to me by those Arab students.

Below is a report from SIOTW about the appalling treatment of former Muslim converts to Christianity at an asylum-seekers’ center in Norway. The violence against these innocent people is not the only issue — that, after all, is the normal behavior one expects from Muslims toward apostates — but the indifference of the authorities:

Christian converts from Islam flee in fear from Muslims at asylum reception center

Muslims at the asylum center told him: “This is Jihad, holy war, and we are waiting for a fatwa (licence to kill) from the local imam at the mosque in Sandnes”

“I had to escape and flee the asylum reception center in fear for my life,” “Arsland” tells the news paper Dagen.

“Arsland” is from Afghanistan, converted to Christianity a while ago, and is now baptized as a Christian.
Arsland is friends with “Ali”, the Christian convert from Islam who was attacked with boiling water and acid at the asylum reception center a few days ago. The young Afghan man is afraid to show his face and real name to reporters, because he knows the Muslims are out to get him.

Hostile attitude

“Another Christian friend of mine also noticed the hostile attitude of Muslims at the reception. ‘We must escape, for I fear that they will kill us,’ he said.

“So I rode off at 1:30 Sunday morning, and went to the Bird Park at Nærbø. There, I tried to sleep on a bench while it was raining,” says “Arsland”. Sunday he was taken care of by Christian friends who live in that area.

Over the weekend, “Ali” moved to another asylum-seeker reception center because of the lack of security at Hå reception center, while three other Christian converts from Afghanistan also fled Hå reception center, and are scattered in Jæren among Christian supporters.

Eyewitness

“Arsland” was an eyewitness to some of the harassment and violence “Ali” was exposed to last Tuesday.

“I heard screaming and went out of the room to see what happened. I witnessed that ‘Ali’ fell to the floor after boiling water was poured over him. Muslims from Somalia turned loose on him and they shouted ‘This is jihad (holy war)’,” says “Arsland”.

The Muslims involved ran quickly to their rooms when “Arsland” showed up. Together with another Afghan, “Arsland” lifted “Ali” carefully and carried him to his room.” Arsland” tried to warn police about what had happened, but without getting any response. A woman from the Lutheran Free Church was at the reception at the same time that this happened. She quickly called the police and they came after about half an hour. Later the ambulance arrived, and “Ali” was taken to hospital for treatment. He was back at the reception center on Wednesday.

Summer Fundraiser, The Wrap-Up

Ah, the last day of an unusual bleg. Yeah, I do indeed always say “this one was different” — that’s because they all have a particular rhythm and flow. While I was out of operation for some of those days, still… I don’t recall a week when we had our hands out — “Please, y’all. One more time” — whilst the terra was much less than its usual firma, and the oceans roiled in concert.

Messages from the Karma Dude? Hardly. Or, if those were intended as cosmic memos, they were certainly delivered sotto voce. Strange, though, that we were relatively near the epicenter — which was close by in Cuckoo according to the Google Map — yet Washington D.C., many miles further north in a reclaimed swamp and certainly not part of the Blue Ridge Piedmont where be this quakier geology — experienced more damage.

I suppose one has to label that extended tremble as an “earthquake” since it registered on the Richter Scale, and it knocked stones off the National Cathedral, and it continued to send out aftershocks as far as New England and Canada — to remind us how little we know of what teems and steams and pushes far below this seemingly hard ground upon which we move…

Earthquake Cuckoo left its particular imprint on those who experienced it because forever after we’ll associate that brief jitney ride with where we were and what we were doing as it began to make itself felt as a whole body experience. For me the remnant impression will be one of absence, for what it turned out not to be. Suddenly brought out of my snooze (that’s ‘meditation’ with your eyes closed) from the severe repeated jolts, I was utterly certain the Baron was lying next to me in the throes of an epileptic seizure. Thus my immediate reaction to the sight of an empty bed was profound relief. Bouncing though it was, that bed did not contain my husband’s unconscious body. This immediate reactive fear continued to abate as I leaned over to inspect the floor beside the bed; a space where, again, his body was not lying. A second later the Baron appeared at the door, hale and hearty. It was only then that reality hit, and it was only then that I became alarmed, even as my great relief continued to make itself felt, even through the disconcerting waves of involuntary movement.

We headed out the front door (ladies first), our cat frantically moving past the too-slow human legs toward the safety of the yard. We stood there in what now seem long suspended moments, listening to the contents of our home jingling to their earth music. In retrospect, our calm now seems surreal; how curious our interested curiosity appears from this distance. Perhaps if we lived in ‘real’ quake country our reaction would have been less one of interest than of fear and foreboding. For me, though, we were still too close to that waking instant when I thought my heretofore healthy husband was in the throes of his own brain quake.

I remember the silence too. After the tremors, everything seemed so very still. We returned hesitantly to the house, looking in each room to see what might have fallen. The next day we were to find a small vase under a chair in the living room. I think it fell off its perch on the bookshelf during one of the aftershocks, though. I remember looking under the chair almost immediately after our first re-entry.

And then there were the days leading up to Irene’s impending visit to the long coast of the eastern United States. The Baron followed it closely because he cares deeply about the fate of the Barrier Islands along the coast of North Carolina. Each severe hurricane changes the topography, those haunts of his childhood, of his young adulthood spent camping on the Outer Banks. Even Irene managed to cut a new channel or two on that slim spit of land.

I never quite believed in Irene, at least not for us. We’re not too far inland to be hit, or to lose our power, but she seemed a media hype from the beginning. Those media flunkies wanted this one so badly. It would be the great opportunity for our commander-in-chief to strut his anti-Bush stuff. No Katrina for him. In reality, Irene was the anti-Katrina. The LOL ’cane, I called it (as did someone else), but the media and the Dauphin played it for all straight, as though this were the Real Deal.

Sure it was. Dude had to come in out of the rain, quit playing golf so he could do his stint as The One who calms the seas and gentles the winds. Yes, he can. Indeed he can, if someone would just get the damn winds up to speed or let him go back to the golf course. But even if his golf game has to wait, what sacrifices is this gallant not willing to make for us all?

[Meanwhile, his illegal immigrant uncle was arrested in Massachusetts for drunk driving. Sorry, for suspicion of drunk driving. It would appear that Obama Onyango is to be represented by the same lawyer who handled Auntie Zeituni Onyango’s charges regarding her illegal alien status. Isn’t that nice? The Onyangos have a family retainer for all their asylum needs.

Meanwhile, Obama moves past Jimmah Carter for the number of embarrassing relatives attending a sitting president. I doubt Uncle Obama will be nearly so entertaining as Bubba Billy Carter or his momma, Miz Lillian.(The latter was heard to declare she might have made a mistake in having children after all) The Barack Obamas are taking no chances: Michelle’s momma is safely under wraps ensconced in the warm extended First Family at the White House. Ol’ Jimmah from the Ummah was just a Georgia cracker peanut farmer back then. What’s Obama’s excuse?]

So in the midst of the quick quake and the hurrycane, our bleg sailed on. As we continued, my own “flare” of fibromyalgia receded enough to allow me to sit up for extended periods. Now, like Irene, it’s mostly gone. Till the next one, but I’ll worry about that when it gets here. We never hit a reef, nor did we tack too close to the wind. (if you don’t count last night. A few worried people have written us to “watch our backs”, but we’re in this for the long haul.) There are only two known factors in play:

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

A prominent German business leader has called on Chancellor Angela Merkel to withdraw from the euro and join with Austria, Finland, and the Netherlands — the Eurozone countries with the strongest economies — in a new currency union. He believes that the move would help the struggling southern members of the EU by allowing them to devalue their currency relative to the new northern currency, and thus improve the market for their exports. Germany’s exports would be hurt, but the decrease in the inflation rate would make up for it.

Meanwhile, in Chechnya a suicide bomber exploded before he could be apprehended by the police, killing himself, seven policemen, and an emergency worker.

In other news, the Italian oil giant ENI has signed a new deal with the transitional government in Libya, permitting the company to return to Libya and reactivate its oil and natural gas production facilities.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Caroline Glick, CSP, Gaia, Insubria, JP, KGS, Rembrandt, TB, Vlad Tepes, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

Matthew Stiddon is a member of the English Defence League who ran afoul of members of Unite Against Fascism. The UAF people disagreed with his opinions, so they threatened him with violence, and then torched his Land Rover where it was parked in front of his home.

Many thanks to Vlad Tepes for conducting this interview and uploading the video:

Our Swedish correspondent Freedom Fighter sends his translation of an op-ed decrying Sweden’s funding of salaries for Palestinian terrorists in Israeli prisons. He includes this brief note:

Surprise!

The major Swedish Daily newspaper Svenska Dagbladet wrote today in tough editorial that the Palestinian Government, the “Palestinian Authority”, are using Swedish aid money to support terrorism against Israel.

On 13 April this year the Palestinian Authority announced a new law governing salary payments to terrorists and others in Israeli captivity. The Authority newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadida reported the new regulations in detail (15 / 4):

“Each prisoner is guaranteed a monthly salary, to be paid directly to him or his family, on condition that he is not already receiving a salary from any other authority” it said. “The minimum wage, to be paid from the first days of captivity, is 1400 shekels/month ( The shekel is Israeli the currency, 3.5 shekels = $1 ). Those who have been imprisoned from 3 to 5 years, 2000 shekels/month. From 5 up to 10 years they receive 4000 shekels a month. “After 30 years 12,000 a month. In addition, allowances for prisoners who are married, have children or who live inside Israel, plus legal fees, compensation for clothes, and grants for university studies in captivity. Furthermore released prisoners, who have been detained longer than five years, receive free or discounted training, and free health insurance.

“More than 30 million dollars a month is paid to the Palestinians and Israeli Arabs who have been imprisoned by Israel “as a result of participation in the struggle against the occupation”.

For example, the Hamas terrorist Abdullah Barghouti, who in 2004 confessed that he built the bombs that killed 66 people and injured 500 in a series of suicide bombings in 2001, receives 4000 shekels a month. After a further three years in captivity, his salary will be increased by 50 percent, and corresponds to more than double the wage for Palestinians in the regular labor market.

Our Danish correspondent TB sends a translated report about an incident that occurred during an end-of-Ramadan celebration in a culturally-enriched zone in Denmark.

First, his introduction:

Denmark must be the entertainment center of Europe right now…

It is election time, and the job of making the democracy-machine work while at the same time filling it up with gravel is a tough one. The other day Hizb ut-Tahrir destroyed the socialists’ election posters in Tingbjerg. The day after that a group of ‘youngsters’ attacked a bus full of soccer players at the same place, since they took it upon themselves to park at the football stadium.

Today a Pakistani Muslim criminal was shot down in front of a local mosque in Vesterbro, Copenhagen while celebrating Eid. It happened in an area with many kids and innocent passers-by. ‘Luckily’ the only people hit beside the criminal Muslim were two of his fellow Muslims. The police have managed to find one of the perpetrators (yes, also a Muslim) in… Sweden! At a taxpayer-funded hospital receiving treatment for gunshot wounds in his leg.

The shootout had another one of our Immigrant Role Model Politicians as a witness, Mr. Sarwar. It all happened at the Eid party he was attending. He is now very angry about this incident. ‘Its all about drugs’. Nothing to do with Islam. But we all knew that of course.

As if that were not enough, another socialist was attacked today. His name is Kamal Qureshi, and he is from Pakistan.

And now it gets funny. A local candidate for the Danish People’s Party had aired an election video showing an old lady being attacked by a Muslim criminal while ‘Muhammad’ in the background shouts ‘racist’ towards the candidate because he speaks up against the violence. Since then, Kamel Qureshi has gone ballistic. He says that he is so tired of the DPP associating all Muslims with criminals. That in fact it is the DPP who are the criminals for constantly pointing out what is obviously the truth.

The BBC has put out yet another hit piece on the English Defence League, doing everything in its power to paint the peaceful demonstrators at EDL events as violent. It ignores the fact that the vast majority of violent attacks at the demos are initiated by the “anti-fascists” who oppose the EDL.

Even worse, there is the not-so-subtle hint that EDL demonstrators are the equivalent of the rioters, arsonists, and looters that ravaged London earlier this month.

Vlad Tepes has supplemented the BBC’s hatchet job with some additional footage and commentary:

Monday, August 29, 2011

Muammar Qaddafi’s wife and three of his children escaped across the border into Algeria today. The family’s relocation was confirmed by the Algerian government. The NTC — the new government of Libya — said that Algeria’s provision of refuge for members of the Gheddafi family constituted an act of war.

In other news, a proposed amendment to the Spanish constitution would impose a limit on the size of the public deficit. The Moody’s rating agency reacted positively to the announcement, which may improve the rating on Spain’s sovereign debt. However, both the “Indignados” and the unions are protesting publicly against the measure.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Gaia, Insubria, Kitman, Nilk, Srdja Trifkovic, TV, Vlad Tepes, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

The previous essays in this series examined different aspects of Anders Behring Breivik’s murderous rampage in Norway on July 22, and its aftermath. Some parts of those posts were speculative; some were tangential to the massacre itself. The facts that concern us here are relatively few. From those earlier posts, this is what we know (as opposed to what we and others might be inclined to deduce, surmise, or invent out of whole cloth) about those horrific events:

A Norwegian, Anders Behring Breivik, detonated a fertilizer bomb in downtown Oslo on the afternoon of July 22, a bank holiday. The bomb killed nine people and did great damage to buildings in the area.

We are told that he acted alone, and had no known accomplices.

Mr. Breivik then traveled to the resort island of Utøya. Dressed in a policeman’s uniform, he took part in the slaughter of sixty-eight unarmed participants in a Labour Party gathering. Many of those killed were teenagers.

Although there were initial reports that there was at least one other gunman, we are told that he acted alone.

We are told that the killer was not part of a wider conspiracy, and had no assistance in acquiring his weapons and building his bombs.

According to published reports, Mr. Breivik acquired at least some of the components for his fertilizer bomb from Poland.

An early news report claimed that the head of a Polish chemical company had been arrested as a co-conspirator. This report was later denied by the Polish government.

Some person, later said to be Anders Behring Breivik, posted comments on various Counterjihad websites, most prominently Document.no. In these comments he stated his solidarity with those who resist the Islamization of Europe.

Just before the massacre began, a 1,500-page manifesto in English was sent out to various bloggers, politicians, and media outlets. We are told that this document was written by Anders Behring Breivik. The manifesto quotes a wide range of anti-jihad writers, with a particular focus on Fjordman and on Robert Spencer. Much of the material in those 1,500 pages came from American writers or websites.

As soon as the killer’s identity became known, media outlets and governments all across the West condemned the sources cited in the manifesto, sometimes saying that those authors bore partial responsibility for the murderer’s actions because they “inspired” him.

American intelligence had been conducting a large surveillance operation out of the embassy in Oslo for a number of years until it was exposed by a Norwegian television station in late October, 2010.

The date of the exposure of the American operation in Oslo coincided almost exactly with the cessation of Anders Behring Breivik’s visible activity on the internet.

Local Norwegian employees, drawn from former police officers and intelligence agents, had been hired by the American embassy in Oslo to assist in the surveillance operation.

A week after the Oslo massacre, the official Norwegian investigation into the embassy’s surveillance program was dropped.

Reports from Poland, Belarus, and Russia asserted that Anders Behring Breivik traveled to Belarus on at least two separate occasions. He went there to acquire paramilitary training. We were told that this information originated with sources in the Belarusian intelligence community.

The camp where Mr. Breivik received his training was run by a former FSB officer, according to reports from Belarus and Russia. This man is one of the directors of a private intelligence service headquartered in the Persian Gulf. Other part-owners of the company are said to include the former head of Saudi military intelligence and a subsidiary of Halliburton.

Some news reports claim that several months before the massacre Mr. Breivik met with an inmate who escaped from a Russian mental institution and fled to Norway. This former Russian inmate said he had been acting as an agent of the Russian government; he was purportedly under orders to kill a Chechen separatist leader in Norway. He turned himself in to the Norwegian authorities, and was eventually deported back to Russia.

The global Islamic community, especially as manifested under the aegis of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, has made eradicating so-called “Islamophobia” its top priority.

One of the prominent features of the campaign against “Islamophobia” is a well-orchestrated strategy to criminalize “defamation of religions, including Islam” in non-Muslim countries.

To this end, the OIC has worked through the United Nations to pass Human Rights Council Resolution 16/18. This resolution demands that member states criminalize “defamation of religion”.

Numerous meetings of OIC representatives are called expressly to pass plenary resolutions specifying the critical need to outlaw defamation of Islam. The specified criminal acts include insulting Islam, the teachings of the Koran, or the prophet Mohammed.

In June 2011 the OIC’s annual Islamophobia report released proposed a “test of consequences” for defamatory speech. This test would provide guidelines for determining what speech might be unprotected, due to its expected negative consequences.

In July 2011 Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with the OIC in Istanbul. She backed their proposed “comprehensive framework” as developed by the UN et al. to help eliminate intolerance and discrimination towards Islam and Muslims. This “framework” is clearly a violation of the U.S. Constitution and a danger to free speech. Her support of the “framework” is also a clear violation of her oath of office.

Some Muslim writers point to the actions of Anders Behring Breivik as a “consequence” of the “Islamophobia” displayed by writers and websites that criticize sharia and Islam.

The above outline is a rough summary of what we know about Anders Behring Breivik and the acts he committed, and the use the OIC is making of this opportunity. Notice there isn’t all that much hard information — the details of the crime, the victims, and the weapons used, plus the online postings and a manifesto that purports to be by the killer.

We must take the word of the Norwegian and Polish authorities that there were no accomplices. Information released to the public by both governments may very well be the whole truth. However, we know our governments are not always candid. They been known on occasion to release misleading, distorted, or falsified information. This is particularly likely when sensitive intelligence data is involved, or if telling the truth would interfere with the execution of crucial state policies. Even more frequently, officials lie if the whole truth and nothing but the truth would tend to embarrass the government or reveal its profound incompetence.

For these reasons, only the facts bulleted above can be assumed as given. Among those givens are statements by official sources or the press. In other words, the issuing of a statement is a fact; the accuracy of the statement may be open to question.

Everything else in this post is nothing but speculation — hypothesis, conjecture, or outright fiction. These hypotheses are attempts to comprehend the pattern of those events in Oslo and on Utøya. If fitting them into a structure makes sense and accounts for most loose ends, then we have at least a few possible paths that lead us into areas that governments and other groups have marked “off limits”.

Fiction can be useful. It may help us understand complex real-world events that would otherwise be a murky muddle. Thus, moving past the assumed factual premises listed above, from here on in I’m making stuff up out of whole cloth. The pattern of pretend I will weave may enhance our understanding of the larger picture. Other, more knowledgeable observers may produce a richer cloth with a pattern that approximates the truth more closely than mine.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

It is appropriate to begin our speculative ruminations at the end, rather than the beginning: with the political ramifications of the events of July 22 — the manner in which the event was immediately and ferociously exploited by the politicians and the media. How did their treatment of events serve the ends of Politically Correct Multiculturalism?

Within twenty-four hours after the Oslo massacre, it became evident that there was something peculiar about the killer’s reading habits and internet preferences. The immediate horror of what Anders Behring Breivik did on that dreadful Friday made it hard to think about the implications of his manifesto and internet postings. Later on, however, when the initial furor had subsided somewhat, a number of people — especially those who were pointed to as Mr. Breivik’s “inspiration” — noticed that there was something fishy about the list of writers and websites the media gleefully associated with the Butcher of Utøya.

The roster of “hate sites” was just too perfect. From the point of view of those who would like nothing better than to discredit the Counterjihad movement and drive its adherents out of business, the list was complete. The killer’s favorite authors read like a who’s-who of the resistance to Islamization. All of the most prolific and accomplished anti-sharia activists were included; no one was omitted.

Mr. Breivik’s internet bookmarks eerily resembled an “enemies list” as compiled by CAIR or the OIC. To the skeptic, that peculiarity alone was enough to ring alarm bells.

Even more bizarre was the murderer’s overwhelming focus on English-language sites, especially American ones. Since most educated Scandinavians are fluent in English, Mr. Breivik’s preferences might not seem unusual at first glance. However, compare his preoccupation with American sites with his avowed goal of reviving European nationalism and European civilization. Is it not strange that he paid less attention to major European sites such as Snaphanen, Uriasposten, Politically Incorrect, Islam in Europe, Tundra Tabloids, Politisk Inkorrekt, and Europe News? Why did he obsess on American sources, with their parochially American focus?

It seems Fjordman was his particular favorite. Once Fjordman quit blogging, he chose to publish his writings on sites run by Americans. Those Americans who followed Counterjihad sites in the USA would discover Fjordman and realize his significance, without ever having to look at any European blogs or forums. The same is true of Bat Ye’or, Geert Wilders, and other members of the European Counterjihad, all of whom are prominent on major anti-sharia sites in the USA.

The murderer’s oeuvre resembled a list of enemies compiled by a sharia-compliant American. This peculiarity — the too-perfect listing of anti-sharia writers, with a bizarrely American focus — is what cries out for further speculation and conjecture.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

When something smells that fishy, it’s time to go looking for finned creatures, perhaps with a net.

Summer Fundraiser, Day 7

Have you noticed that every fundraiser has its own rhythm and rhyme, its own character? These variations are due at least partially to the weather, i.e., the weather outside the window, and my own personal and quite variable meteorology. [The term used for used for exacerbations of fibromyalgia symptoms is apt. They’re called “flares”, as indeed they are.]

Thus, during this here particular bleg, we’ve had earthquakes, a hurricane, and a severe fibromyalgia flare of several days’ duration. The hurricane — Irene, I believe her name was — passed on to hassle Rhode Island, Vermont, and points north. We hope it’s another few years again until the next earth tremor, while this flare seems to be easing. I think.

But then there are the… um…. “discussions”… exacerbations of the marital sort at Schloss Bodissey. Chesterton noted that fairy tales end with the formula “and they lived happily ever after.” But he was quick to point out those fairy tales never ended “…peacefully ever after.” Chesterton claimed that a real marriage had real contention, and this contention was to be welcomed.

Sunday, August 28, 2011

The French government has announced that it will cut €12 billion from the budget over an unspecified period. It emphasized that it was not forced into this austerity, but chose to act prudently, unlike “Italy, Spain and Portugal, not to mention Greece”.

Meanwhile, Portugal has decided to tackle its fiscal crisis by levying a temporary tax of 3% on the richest people in the country.

In other news, the Shi’ite terror group Hezbollah has reaffirmed its support for the Syrian regime’s crackdown on civil unrest.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Gaia, Insubria, Kitman, Nilk, Rembrandt, Steen, Takuan Seiyo, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

Now that the Qadaffi regime in Libya has collapsed, Italian leaders are openly discussing the fact that Col. Gheddafi deliberately engineered this year’s flood of immigrants into Italy, as punishment for Italian participation in the NATO air war against Libya. The issue is being talked up in anticipation of a future war crimes trial of the former dictator when he is finally captured and brought to justice.

I’ll have more details on the Gadafi question later in this post, but first let’s look at the new arrivals in Italy. Since my last report, an additional 257 culture-enrichers have landed on the island of Lampedusa. This brings the year-to-date total of illegal Mediterranean immigrants into Italy to just under 54,000, which is not enough of an uptick to warrant a revision of the Cultural Enrichment Thermometer.

(AGI) Palermo — Migrants continue to arrive on Lampedusa as the immigration influx from Tunisia heightened in the past few days while it slackened from Libya. Other 155 Tunisians arrived on the island last night on three boats with 9,57 and 89 persons on board, sighted by the Coast Guard and the Financial Police.

(AGI) Rome — A total of 102 migrants landed on the island of Lampedusa yesterday evening (Aug 26), the Italian Coast Guard reports.

The party included 3 Tunisians.

Earlier in the week a group of culture-enrichers in a camp in southern Sicily staged yet another ruction in an attempt to escape. Some of the rioters were successful, and are still at large:

Migrant Uprising in Pozzallo: 50 Escape: 5 Officers Hurt

(AGI) Ragusa — There was an uprising at the first aid post in Pozzallo last night as hundreds of migrants tried to escape.

Fifteen or so officers attempted to quell the rioting refugees.

Sixteen escapees were tracked down, but another fifty or so are still missing and a police search is ongoing. Thirteen migrants have been arrested and charged with causing damage and obstruction. Five police officers have been hurt.

Now for a closer look at the war crimes case against Col. Moammar Qheddafi, the Man of Many Spellings. First, this brief note from ANSAmed, which reports the acknowledgement by the Libyan ambassador to Italy of something that everyone already knew:

Summer Fundraiser, Day Six

Well, as you can see, we made it through the ravages of Hurricane Irene relatively unscathed. The parapets at Schloss Bodissey were not dilapidated of even a single stone.

The electricity only flickered once, for less than a second, when a particularly strong gust of wind hit. We had just over an inch of rain. The satellite internet connection went out a few times during heavy showers, but never for long.

Of course, we haven’t tried to go out yet, so it’s still possible that a tree is lying across the driveway. But we’ll deal with that when we come to it.

Dymphna is still under the weather, which is why she has been unable to contribute another fundraising post to our week of blegging, and also why she is way behind in her thank-you notes. For those who have yet to receive one: as the flashing signs on Interstate 64 in Hampton said this morning, “Expect Delays”.

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Points further east in the Old Dominion and North Carolina fared much worse than we did. I wouldn’t want to have been one of the hardy souls who declined to heed the evacuation order and stayed in Beaufort, Ocracoke, Kill Devil Hills, Kitty Hawk, or Sands End.

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Now that the regime of Muamar Ghedafi has collapsed, new reports from Tripoli indicate that the former dictator’s adopted daughter, Hana Gaddafi, is still alive. Ms. Qaddafi was said to have been killed as an infant during the bombing of Tripoli by the U.S. Air Force in 1986, and has been commemorated as a martyr ever since. But new evidence has appeared detailing the young woman’s employment and recent places of residence in Tripoli, supporting the assertion that her death was a fiction created for propaganda purposes.

In other news, Palestinian members will soon be granted the status of “partners for democracy” in the Council of Europe, and will be seated in the COE parliament.

Thanks to An EDL buck, C. Cantoni, Diana West, Insubria, JP, KGS, Kitman, Nilk, Rembrandt, Steen, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

Those of us who follow the progress of Islamization on both sides of the Atlantic have observed in recent months the remarkable successes realized by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in achieving its agenda. By focusing on “Islamophobia”, the OIC has skillfully pushed all the available guilt buttons on government officials, academics, and the media. The fear of being seen as racist or intolerant trumps everything else. Getting with the OIC program is the path of least resistance — follow it, and you are guaranteed to feel good about yourself. Even better, you are less likely to be sued by CAIR.

The latest strategy launched by the Obama administration is to pull back from effective counter-terrorism intelligence in local law enforcement, and concentrate on “community policing” instead. In Muslim communities, this means engaging the help of local Muslim leaders in fighting “violent extremism”, rather than doing the necessary undercover work to discover dangerous networks using traditional intelligence models.

“Hello there, Mr. Fox! Would you kindly help us find the violent extremist in the henhouse?”

The concept of “violent extremism” is the height of absurdity. Extreme what? Extreme heavy metal music, maybe? Extreme Shintoism? How about extreme vegetarianism?

Without a substantive to modify, the adjective “extreme” is worse than incoherent — it is without linguistic or semantic meaning. This is the depth to which our official policy-making has sunk.

In an article entitled “Losing Malmö”, published in today’s NRO, Andrew C. McCarthy, a former prosecutor and author of The Grand Jihad, takes a look at these and other aspects of the fight against Islamic terrorism in Europe and the United States. Some excerpts are below:

Do you remember the jihadist terror campaign that ravaged Malmö, Sweden’s third largest city? Do you recall the bombings, the suicide-hijackings, and the random assassinations that finally coerced the city to surrender to Islamization?

No? Funny, I don’t remember them either. Yet there is no question that Malmö has surrendered. Large enclaves of the city, like similar enclaves throughout Western Europe, have earned the dread label “no-go zone.” They are unsafe for non-Muslims, particularly women who do not conform to Islamist conventions of dress and social interaction. They are especially perilous for police, firefighters, and emergency-medical technicians.

Why would a community discourage the so-called first-responders? After all, the top priority of law-enforcement officers is to assist crime victims. In an Islamic enclave, a high percentage of these will be Muslims. And obviously, the fire department and the ambulances are dispatched to save lives — here, Muslim lives. Yet, the community is hostile. The police and other emergency personnel are viewed as agents of the non-Muslim state. Their presumptuousness in entering the Islamic enclave and acting under the color of Swedish law is taken as an affront to Islamic sovereignty.

[…]

There is a simple reason why this has happened to Malmö, and why it is happening in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, etc. The European Union forced on its member states the same approach to their swelling Muslim populations that the Obama administration is now trying to strong-arm American cities and states into adopting. It is a suicide theory, holding that the only threat to our security is “violent extremism.”

Violent extremism, the theory goes, is wanton and irrational. Therefore, it is mere coincidence that today’s violent extremists are almost uniformly Muslims. Indeed, the big thinkers settled on the antiseptic term “violent extremism” specifically to avoid the word “terrorism,” which, owing to the inconvenience that Islamic scripture adjures Muslims to “strike terror into the hearts” of their perceived enemies, would give violent extremism an Islamic connotation that is to be studiously avoided, no matter how accurate it may be.

With violent extremism as their guide, policymakers instruct security agencies that there is no need to scrutinize any strain of Islamic ideology for the purpose of divining what Islamists want. In fact, the theory continues, because violence is wanton, while Islam is peaceful, violence must perforce be anti-Islamic, and thus Islamists must be just as offended by it as anyone else. Consequently, since by some strange quirk of fate the violent extremists seem to be coming out of the Islamic community, the best strategy is to befriend Islamist leaders and consult them about how we can conduct investigations without causing offense.

Muslim immigrants to Scandinavia are treated well when they arrive in their new homes. Their hosts hope that Nordic generosity will be reciprocated when the time comes — as it inevitably must — that the immigrants become the majority in their adoptive countries. This sentiment was even stated publicly by Jens Orback, the Democracy Minister in a previous Swedish government, who said: “We must be open and tolerant towards Islam and Muslims because when we become a minority, they will be so towards us.”

Unfortunately for Scandinavia, Muslims are notorious for biting the hand that feeds them. In any Western society where they become numerous enough, they eventually begin to agitate, complain, vandalize, attack, and sabotage the social and political mechanisms of their host society.

In this latest incident, culture-enrichers in Denmark sabotaged the election campaign of one of their own, a Social Democrat named Yildiz Akdogan. Our Danish correspondent TB sends a translated article about the incident, and includes this introductory note:

Here’s a little story from the new, enriched Denmark. It really looks like the Socialists are going to win the election. But now it seems that their newly-imported buddies are a little more than just easy votes. The Role Model Muslim Immigrant of the Social Democrats has had a little setback in her campaign.

The text below the picture says: “Yildiz Akdogan, member of parliament for the Social Democrats since 2007, had her election posters in Copenhagen defaced.”

The IT spokesperson for the Social Democrats, Yildiz Akdogan, was on the street last night to put up election posters. But already on her way home, at half past two in the morning, she discovered that her election posters had been vandalized.

Summer Fundraiser, Day 5

It was supposed to be Dymphna’s turn to do the fundraiser post tonight. However, as she says, she is “under the weather.”

And so are we all here in Central Virginia, or at least we expect to be within about twelve hours or so. Hurricane Irene is scheduled to come ashore in a little while, and its belts of rain will be affecting us by the middle of Saturday.

According to the most recent projections, Irene will make landfall somewhere between Emerald Isle and Beaufort on the coast of North Carolina, most likely at Atlantic Beach or Morehead City. After that it will scurry up the coast, picking up speed as it passes just offshore of Virginia Beach, and then right along the coast of the Eastern Shore, raking Assateague Island, Ocean City, and the Delaware Dunes. After crossing New Jersey, it looks like it will miss Manhattan by a hair and nail Long Island.

The damage may not be as bad as was originally expected, however. The hurricane dropped to a Category Two, and will be Category One by the time it hits the beaches. Since it is coming in further east than Isabel did (September, 2003), I suspect that Schloss Bodissey will emerge relatively unscathed.

But just in case: be aware that we live in a very rural area, in the midst of a lot of things called “trees”, many of them hovering over the co-op power lines. They’re just waiting for the moment when ice or snow or wind or lightning gives them an excuse to come crashing down, depriving thousands of us hicks of our electricity supply. Irene is their main chance.

Friday, August 26, 2011

A suicide bomber in the Nigerian capital Abuja exploded his car at the main building of the UN compound, killing at least 18 people. The Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the blast.

Meanwhile, in Libya, rebel forces supported by NATO are attacking Moammar Gheddafi’s hometown Sirte, where the former dictator is believed to have holed up, along with Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber.

In other news, a consortium of the most wealthy citizens in France has petitioned the government to raise their taxes, in order to help pay off the country’s debts.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

Last night our Austrian correspondent Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff was one of the podium speakers at a panel discussion organized under the auspices of Heinz-Christian Strache, the leader of the FPÖ (Austrian Freedom Party). The topic of discussion was “Europe is changing: Are there possibilities for a consensus with Islam(ism) or will there be a decline of our society and values?”

The other panelists on the podium were:

Prof. Dr. Jeroen Bons, Professor at the University of Utrecht

Dr. Ralf Stein, Jurist

Christian Höbart, MP and FPÖ youth leader

Prof. Dr. Herbert Eisenstein, Arabist and scholar of Islam at the University of Vienna; member of the FPÖ

A video of Elisabeth’s remarks is below the jump, followed by a transcript. As you will discover from her talk, the fact that she was convicted of “denigrating the religious beliefs of a legally recognized religion” has not silenced Elisabeth’s voice, nor stopped her from speaking out in public on the dangers of Islamization in Austria.

CAIR-Chicago Staff Attorney Rabya Khan met with officials at a Chicago-area high school on Monday, August 15th, regarding a complaint CAIR-Chicago received by a parent alleging that the high school’s social studies class is distributing misleading worksheets on Islam. The worksheets in question, produced by a California based educational resource company, teaches students that the religion of Islam is oppressive towards women, inherently violent, and played an important role in harboring slavery.

One of the readings contains verses from the Quran which are quoted out-of-context wrongly giving the impression that women are considered inferior to men. A corresponding worksheet then asks: “The Qur’an stresses the equality of all believers. Yet many say its views about men and women definitely give men more power. How does the top passage here from the Qu’ran support this view?” The reading is accompanied by a photo of two women in burqa, a full-body covering worn by only a minority of Muslim women worldwide. The inauthentic translation, imagery, and presentation of information leads students to a biased conclusion about the status of men and women in Islam.

These are the notes from a CAIR video about the organization’s objections to a children’s coloring book that depicts the perpetrators of 9-11 as Muslim terrorists. The video itself, a news story from Michigan, is below the jump:

(WXYZ) - On the brink of the 10th anniversary of September 11th a new children’s ‘graphic coloring novel’ has emerged.

We want to know; is it appropriate for kids?

According to the publisher, the book entitled ‘We Shall Never Forget 9/11 -- The Kids’ Book of Freedom’ is “designed to be a tool that parents can use to help teach children about the facts surrounding 9/11.”

The book opens on September 11, 2011 with a picture of Osama Bin Laden as he plots the US attacks. It ends nearly 10 years later with the raid of Bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound and his death.

Several pages show both American military and Muslims with guns. The final page of the story shows a bullet flying toward Bin Laden before his death.

Publishers say the book ‘demonstrates honesty, reverence, integrity and good character,’ with ‘a historic and educational perspective.’

7 Action News showed the coloring book to the Executive Director for the Council on American-Islamic relations. He calls the book disgusting because it portrays all Muslims as radicals when indeed American Muslims had nothing to do with 9-11 and they were victims as well as first responders that day.

“This publisher is doing a disservice to innocent young minds by showing this type of nonsense. In every single reference to Muslims has to do with radical, extremists, and depictions of people being terrorists,” said Dawud Walid.

Spokesperson for the publisher, Wayne Bell, released a statement to Action News about the use of Osama Bin Laden and said:

Summer Fundraiser, Day 4

In her post last night Dymphna likened the emotional experience of the past month to the unexpected breaking of a wave over an unwary swimmer. Our sensation of being suddenly flooded informed the nautical theme for this quarter’s fundraiser. Beginning on Friday July 22, and continuing for more than two weeks, we were overwhelmed by a vast tide of events beyond our control, and swept into a maelstrom that no one would enter voluntarily.

Dymphna’s description, plus the hurricane that is now advancing up the coast towards us, put me in mind of a memorable event that occurred thirty-six years ago, in late July 1975. Hurricane Irene seems to be heading tomorrow for Atlantic Beach or Morehead City in North Carolina, but back then Hurricane Blanche never came ashore — it just paralleled the coast for a few days, close enough to affect the surf at the coastal resorts.

I was in Virginia Beach at the time, and went swimming in the surf one morning. As it happened, I entered the water about twenty minutes before the local authorities decided that the surf had become too dangerous, and instructed the lifeguards to pull everyone out of the water.

There’s nothing like an offshore hurricane to make body-surfing exciting, so I enjoyed myself for the first few minutes. Then a particularly large wave broke over me, and its backwash pulled me further out. When I struggled to my feet I realized just how BIG those waves were, and how frequently they were breaking. My feet could barely touch the bottom, and I became quite frightened — it seemed that I might not be able to make it safely back to shore.

Then the old Boy Scout training kicked in. I recalled the manual’s advice to ocean swimmers caught in a cross-current or an undertow. The most important tactic is counterintuitive: stop struggling to keep your feet in contact with the bottom. Pull them up and float in the breast-stroke position. Keep your body at right angles to the incoming surf, so that no breaking wave can catch you by surprise, yet you can turn and pull towards shore with each wave as it comes by.

Keep your head above water. Here comes the wave: turn and swim a few strokes towards the beach. Repeat with the arrival of each new wave. Don’t put your feet down and walk until the water is below waist level.

That’s what they taught us in Scouts, and it worked. It seemed to take hours, but it was really only a few minutes until I staggered out of the water and up the beach just as the lifeguards started calling swimmers out of the water. I flopped down on the sand, breathing hard, and rested for a few minutes, thanking the Lord for giving me one more chance.

I promised myself then and there that never again would I mess with another hurricane surf. Yet here I am, thirty-six years later, having just emerged from another kind of dangerous surf.

Thursday, August 25, 2011

President Obama’s popularity with Hispanics has dropped to 44%, which is 41% below its peak of 85% back in the spring of 2009. His rating with Hispanics dropped 5% during the last week alone — the same week in which Janet Napolitano announced her administrative amnesty for illegal immigrants.

In other news, a Christian Egyptian blogger has gone on a hunger strike in jail. In April Dr. Michael Nabil Sanad was sentenced to three years in prison for criticizing the military regime.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Gaia, JP, Kitman, Mary Abdelmassih, Steen, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

This is one of those news stories that makes you say, “What the heck is going on here??”

Two men were hurt by an explosion in the cab of their pickup. They said it was a drive-by bomb attack.

Hmm.

However, witnesses saw the men throwing something into a nearby field before the police arrived. Police later found unexploded mortar rounds in the field, and a “mortar-like device” in the truck.

Again, hmm.

All this occurred in Michigan, but my knowledge of the state’s ethnic geography is insufficient to determine how culturally-enriched Columbia Township is, or how likely it is the miscreants victims were adherents of the Religion of Peace. I suppose we’ll have to wait for the men to be charged and named by the police, if that ever happens.

Truck Explosion in Columbia Township Sends Pair of Adrian Men to U-M Hospital

A pair of Adrian men have been airlifted to the University of Michigan Hospital following an explosion in the truck they were driving Sunday afternoon in Columbia Township.

According to Columbia Township Police Chief David Elwell, the men, 22 and 23 years of age, were riding in a 1995 Chevrolet pickup on Cement City Road at Dearmyer Road at about 4 p.m. when the cab of the truck exploded.

The driver of the truck, 22, told police that another vehicle passed by and threw something into it.

“The inside of the truck was pretty damaged,” Elwell said. “It’s a wonder they weren’t killed on impact.”

However, after the explosion, Elwell said two witnesses told police they saw the men run to a nearby corn field, throw items into it and return to the scene before police arrived.

The Lush cosmetics corporation is engaging in what is commonly known as “greenwash” — the cynical exploitation of environmental causes to curry favor with the Green Left. Engaging in greenwash can even be a kind of protection racket, in which corporations that participate are exempt from boycott campaigns or even violent attacks by environmental activists.

One environmental campaign supported by Lush targets the Canadian oil sands industry. Now an advocate for “ethical oil” has turned the tables on the company, using protesters in burkas in front of one of its Canadian retail outlets to protest Lush’s profitable operations in Saudi Arabia.

Watching the ferocious criminality displayed during the riots in British cities during the past weeks, one might be forgiven for thinking that this explosion of mob violence was taking place in some dilapidated god-forsaken Third World country. The horrific scenes of homes and businesses of ordinary Britons going up in flames will not be easily forgotten. Property was smashed up with brazen impunity, cars burned, and there was looting on a truly massive scale. Not only businesses, banks, post-offices, off-licenses, newsagents and luxury-goods shops but also restaurants, pubs and cafes were comprehensively trashed. The video-recordings often show hooded looters replete with bundles of “free” sports goods under their arms, emerging from shops with big grins on their faces. Looters helped themselves to everything from flat-screen TVs and mobile phones to iPads, laptops and a wide variety of electronics.

For the first three days, the Metropolitan Police (MET) in Britain’s capital city appeared alarmingly powerless to stem the tide. The police have, unfortunately, had to function within a society paralyzed by the politics of victimhood, loudly defended by an increasingly misguided liberal intelligentsia. Within this victim culture most social problems are conveniently blamed on the “racism” or oppression of the majority, while ignoring the failings or delinquency of criminal individuals or gangs. Under this banner, even the British riots can be blamed on unemployment, poverty and the cuts in public spending (not yet implemented) proposed in the austerity program of the Cameron government. The simplistic equation adopted by the liberal Left sees the root cause of social disorder in “economic despair” and unspecified “racial tensions” between various communities. Not unexpectedly, London’s former Leftist Mayor, “Red” Ken Livingstone, immediately blamed the “Thatcherism” of the present Tory Government for the violence. For Livingstone and most of the Labour Left, it is all stunningly obvious — no spending cuts, no riots.

When we were first “encouraged” to do these quarterly fundraisers (by a mentor who does such things professionally, in magnitudes where I’m grateful not to ever have to go), the idea caused both of us more than a bit of stage fright. It’s rather like throwing your first party when suddenly, after hours filling tiny pastry puffs and making more Swedish meatballs than you ever want to see again, the thought occurs, “Oh no! What if no one comes? What will I do with all these canapés?” [hint: only make hors d’œuvre your family is willing to eat for a week. Snow storms happen.]

With each fundraiser we became more seasoned. Instead of feeling embarrassed, the custom of “blegging” four times a year simply became part of our work here. Sure, there will always be an initial reluctance to put out one’s hand whilst trying to appear nonchalant, but that passes more quickly. With each experience, we understand better all the stages through which we must move in the course of the week. We grasp better our situation — both as participants and as bystanders — with a surer trust in the sequence. Instead of worrying about setting up ahead of time The Theme for The Week, we let the exigencies of the moment carry us through the days and events of each quite individual bleg. At a not-quite-conscious level what was an idea the night before we start coalesces into a complete event.

This journey no longer passes through much of Reason’s territory. That’s partly because I’ve learned to follow the Baron’s lead. Instead of trying to chart the trip, we jump in the boat and sail off on the next new adventure. No longer afraid of being lost — because we can’t get lost — we’re adept at containing our uncertainty so as to allow room for whatever shows up along the way. Sometimes it’s a bit foggy, but whatever surfaces from the murk is always far more entertaining than we anything we could have imagined on our own.

It is often the case that we start out a bit later than we’d have liked. This time particularly we delayed and stalled. We were both still a bit lost; the terra was less firma than usual. However, we reminded one another that this is what we do: come hell or high water…

[…or earthquakes — damned if another ‘aftershock’ didn’t send me out of the house a few moments ago. I held onto the porch railing in order to sense the tremble of the earth. Only when it quieted (a few moments, perhaps) did I come back to the computer. For any interested amateur seismologists, the map coordinates are: 37.940°N, 77.896°W. It was magnitude 4.5, a bit south of Cuckoo (north of the original epicenter) this time. Three miles down into the bowels of the earth, things are still unsettled.]

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Going in to this fundraiser had, for both of us, a paradoxical feeling. Instead of setting out, we seemed to be arriving safely back at home after a hard journey. Having emerged from a deep turbulence was a strong sensation for both of us. We’d been pulled willy-nilly into the stormy malevolence of a disordered soul halfway across the world, and been stranded amongst the hatreds projected onto us by the killer’s countrymen (who badly needed a scapegoat or three). Even as they grew silent, we were still burdened with their mourning.

There aren’t adequate words to express the gestalt of those days at the end of July and moving through August…

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Most of the world is still on vacation, so the news feed is light again tonight.

According to a recent study in the UK, since 1999 asylum seekers have cost the country £10 billion, which comes out to £2.3 million per day. It is thought that more than a quarter of a million asylum seekers are staying in the country illegally.

Meanwhile, in Australia, a family of refugees that the government considers a security risk have been brought from the holding center on Christmas Island to Sydney so that the mother can give birth. While they are on the mainland, security for them has cost almost a million dollars. They cannot be sent back to Sri Lanka because they are considered genuine refugees.

Thanks to Gaia, JP, KGS, Nilk, Steen, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

As I have mentioned previously, one of major goals of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) is to stop “Islamophobia”, which is its preferred term for the criticism of or opposition to Islam by non-Muslims.

The word “Islamophobia” is of relatively recent coinage. I never encountered it until after 9-11, and it was subjected to widespread ridicule, at least among non-Muslims and non-leftists, when it first became widely known. However, after the OIC and the UN harped on it for a few years, and the progressive media solemnly repeated the Muslim party line, “Islamophobia” gained general currency as a serious, scholarly word for a dangerous mental deficiency that needed to be eradicated in the West.

It piggybacked its way into politically correct usage on “homophobia”, which in turn drew on the word “xenophobia” as its ideological predecessor. Strangely enough, “xenophobia” is not in my Shorter Oxford Dictionary on Historical Principles, but appears in my Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology. The word is not terribly old; it was coined in the late 19th century during a period when many mental disorders were first being labeled with Greek neologisms. Based on the Greek word for “fear”, a “phobia” was the general term assigned to conditions of morbid fearfulness. “Hydrophobia”, for example, was used to describe a morbid fear of water. The stem “xeno-” means “strange” or “foreign”, and “xenophobia” was originally synonymous with “agoraphobia” — it meant “a morbid fear of open spaces”.

It wasn’t until the 20th century, with its new preoccupation with race, that “xenophobia” was assigned its current meaning: “a morbid dislike or dread of foreigners”. In the second half of the century, after the racial ravages of National Socialism, any distaste for foreigners or preference for one’s own kind was stigmatized as “xenophobic”. This shunning helped pave the way for mass Muslim immigration into Western countries by transforming opposition to such policies into a mental disorder.

Half a century later, the “xenophobia” precedent has helped legitimize its stepchild “Islamophobia”, which does similar service in stigmatizing any resistance to Islamization.

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So much for the pedigree of the word “Islamophobia”. We know its function: to delegitimize the opponents of Islam by transforming their political opinions into a mental illness. And not just a neutral mental illness like obsessive-compulsive disorder or schizophrenia, but an evil sort of lunacy, for which one should be committed to an asylum for the criminally insane.

If the OIC achieves its goals, and Islamophobia is outlawed in the West, lawmakers, bureaucrats, and the police will require guidelines about the ways in which this ugly disease manifests itself, so they can recognize those who suffer from it and assign them to a secure facility for treatment. DHS will need to write up a handbook for its local agents describing what to watch out for. Federal and state legislators will need a clear definition of the word to include in the laws they pass against it.

So what is Islamophobia? What’s a good working definition of the word?

Fortunately, someone has already done the hard work of laying out the concept in detail. And, needless to say, the defining was done by Muslims themselves.

The following article, “A Proposed Definition of Islamophobia”, was written last year by a European group called the European Muslim Initiative for Social Cohesion (EMISCO), an umbrella organization of Muslim NGOs from all over the continent.

Even though it was composed from a European perspective, this definition is probably similar to what will be used in the United States when required. I’ll go through it by sections, bolding phrases and sentences that merit further discussion:

Islamophobia is a form of intolerance and discrimination motivated with fear, mistrust and hatred of Islam and its adherents. It is often manifested in combination with racism, xenophobia, anti-immigrant sentiments and religious intolerance.

Notice that this lead paragraph presupposes an understanding of what is in the mind of an Islamophobe. It assumes that opposition to Islam must be motivated by fear and hatred. It excludes the possibility that opponents of Islam may be motivated primarily by rational self-interest, rather than angry passion.

The text does not specify it, but one may assume that EMISCO’s definition denies the existence of any other motives for opposing Islam. It is simply considered impossible that any non-Muslim could inform himself about the scriptures, teachings, and laws of Islam, read the history of Islamic expansion, observe the behavior of Muslims in his own time, and come to the reasoned conclusion that Islam is a dangerous political ideology that has degraded and impoverished every society in which it has become dominant.

Such rational conclusions cannot be drawn. The possibility of doing so will be defined out of existence. “Fear”, “mistrust”, and “hatred” are the only acknowledged motives that anyone could have for opposing Islamization.

Manifestations of Islamophobia include hate speech, violent acts and discriminatory practices, which can be manifested by both non-state actors and state officials.

“Hate speech” is already well-established as a stand-alone crime in Europe, but in the United States it must accompany a “violent act” or other statutory crime before it can be prosecuted. Perhaps the intention here is to help it become a crime by redefining the scope of “discriminatory practices”, which are already illegal in the USA.

This seems to be the general tactic being pursued by Hillary Clinton and the State Department in their consultations with the OIC — to identify those who oppose Islamization as “discriminatory” as they engage in their “defamation of religion”.

Summer Fundraiser, Day 2

Dymphna and I delayed our summer fundraiser for several weeks, due to the crisis that followed the events in Oslo on July 22, 2011.

We experienced a tremendous traffic surge that began the night after the atrocities, when a Swedish Nazi website asserted that Fjordman and Breivik were the same person. They linked to Gates of Vienna and the Fjordman archives, and the new visitors began to pour in.

Strangely enough, Little Green Footballs took up the story almost instantly — do the Nazis send Charles Johnson tips? — and retailed it uncritically. No surprise there. The Norwegian and Swedish newspapers picked it up next, with the Danish and Finnish dailies following suit later the same day. After that it showed up in Der Spiegel, Der Standard, The Telegraph, The Daily Mail, The Sunday Times, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and many, many others.

Some of these esteemed organs of the press actually linked to our blog, but most of them simply named us, generating an unprecedented “Google-lanche” as readers from all over Europe came looking for us. People sent me photos of the front pages of various European newspapers, which had printed screen-shots of our main page or a copy of our masthead image. It was startling and disturbing to be on such universal public display, especially given the repeated descriptions of our site as a “hate-blog” that “inspired” the mass-murderer.

That sort of attention was not what anyone would want. Hate mail in English, Norwegian, Danish, and German. Media requests by the dozen — first looking to interview Fjordman, and then, after he retired from the scene, me. There were some supportive emails, too — they actually outnumbered the hate mail by at least ten to one — but the nasty newspaper coverage was dispiriting stuff to read.

Our traffic peaked at six to eight times its usual level, subsided for a few days, and then skyrocketed again when Fjordman went public. Since then it has slowly dropped to something approaching its normal numbers.

There are many bloggers who would have welcomed the increase in traffic. Their ad rates depend solely on their traffic, so extra visitors are a bonus. Page impressions are page impressions, no matter who clicks the link or who sent the rubberneckers.

But we have no paid ads, so the hostile hordes offered us no advantages, and were a horrifying burden to bear while they lasted. The tsunami of visitors carried with it a large cohort of toxic commenters — lefty trolls, agents provocateurs, hostile opportunists, and operatives from antifa-type organizations who hung around looking to start trouble. There were so many of them that monitoring their invective became too large a job to manage — it was taking five or six hours of my day, and another six or seven to read and answer the hundreds of daily emails. So we had to close the comments until the flood subsided, and even now we are moderating them, because some of those provocateurs are still lurking behind the arras, hoping to slip a stiletto into their unwary hosts and thus provide Blogger with an excuse to shut us down for violating their terms of service.

We could have tried to fundraise during all that mess, I suppose. But most of the new readers were virulently antagonistic, and would have hardly been sympathetic to our appeals. Besides, Dymphna and I are old-fashioned, and raising money so soon after the horror would have been unseemly. Now that a month has gone by, we’re willing to give it a try.

We’ve actually picked up a few new friendly readers, people who were brought to our shores by the tides of controversy, liked what they saw, and decided to settle here. A number of them emailed us to express their solidarity with the Counterjihad movement.

To all of the newcomers we say, “Welcome!” It’s always good to have “new skin for the old ceremony” here at Gates of Vienna.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Finland has started a new trend by demanding collateral from Greece for the money that it will contribute to the Greek bailout. After Finland struck its deal with Greece, Austria, the Netherlands, Slovakia, and Slovenia followed suit, demanding their own collateral. Greece apparently has no more islands it can hock as collateral, so it will be required to put up a cash deposit. However, since it has no money of its own, it will probably have to borrow the money from… the European bailout fund.

Yes, things really have gotten that weird in Europe.

In other news, at least one of the aftershocks following today’s Louisa County (Virginia) earthquake registered 4.8 on the Richter scale, according to updated measurements.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Gaia, Insubria, Janet Levy, Jedilson Bonfim, JP, Nilk, Steen, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

Like so many other writers who oppose Islamization, the Danish psychologist Nicolai Sennels has been lumped together by the media with the mass murdering psychopath of Oslo and Utøya. This is his response.

Behind the Gates of Vienna
by Nicolai Sennels

I am now one of those who are accused of making Anders Breivik into a mass murderer. As Gates of Vienna is also involved, I thought my answer might be of interest and maybe also inspiration for GoV’s readers:

“In his commentary ‘Behind the Gates of Vienna’ in the August 19 edition of Weekend Newspaper, Arne Hardis puts me into the same category as Anders Breivik. The reason for this is that I have called the violent conflict between the Islamic world and everyone else a Third World War. We are not at war with Islam, but Islam is at war with us. The whole thing begins in the Quran, which in reality is a declaration of war against all non-Muslims.

Islamic terror has no limits, and Muslim ghettos have no fatherland. You may call it what you like, but the war on terror is a worldwide conflict.

Hardis also thinks that I am too harsh when I predict exchanges of fire between Muslim groups and Western authorities. Unfortunately, this has already happened several places, among others at Grenoble. There, the police chief said desperately at a press conference that ‘ they shoot at us like shooting at rabbits ‘.

The Islamists’ demand for local sharia states in Europe, which I likewise have predicted, is now a reality. Does Hardis dare to believe that there are no Muslims who will take to the usual means of terror and kidnapping in order to get these demands fulfilled? Breivik was fed up with the Leftist rulers’ careless policy toward a violent and totalitarian religion, and committed crimes against the democratic principles supported by Islam-critical blogs.

Only Breivik can assume the responsibility for his deplorable acts. Those who let Islam enter the Gates of Vienna, however, and sold their voters the dream of a happy multiculture, have burdened themselves with a historically huge responsibility.